Caught By Suprise, Speaking With Natives (Arabic Week 6)

Hello again! I'll start by giving a very brief update on what has been up the past few weeks. I volunteer with a non-profit youth leadership development program called Hugh O'Brian Youth Leadership (HOBY for those that have seen my Facebook plastered with it lately). At the end of July I had the opportunity to volunteer at the World Leadership Congress in Chicago, Illinois where we had ambassadors from 11 different countries. This was an amazing exposure to different cultures from around the world. This weekend I was in Alabama for HOBY Training Institute where volunteers from all over come to help strategize for creating better seminars and programsin the upcoming years. If you would like to hear more about this, please contact me and I would be able to tell you all about the organization that has truly changed my life and outlook on many things for the past 10 years. While at the Training Institute there were two volunteers from Iraq who I had the opportunity to meet. I decided this would be a good opportunity to potentially clear up some questions and talk to people from a country where I am learning the langauge.

The first time I tried to speak Chinese to somebody, I was terrifed that they would become offended of how poorly I spoke their langauge and yell at me or something. This is a common fear that many people have and I still struggle with a lot. I force myself to push past this fear a lot because I have learned something about this fear; this reaction has never happened. I'll repeat that: THIS DOESN'T HAPPEN. Every time I try to speak to somebody in their language it typically goes as follows:

Me: Hello (In their language)
Them: Hello (In their language, unimpressed)
Me: *say anything else in their langauge*
Them: *face lights up  and say some excitement in their language*

Lourd was so excited to see my Arabic writing and started showing me how to write all the letters and random words.

The idea of me being able to speak a foreign language 15 months ago was laughable. I didn't know where to start and this fear overhwelmed me. When I approached Dalia and Lourd and spoke to them in Arabic, they were overjoyed that I was trying. They instantly took to trying to teach me as many words and phrases as possible. I also learned one word in Kurdish as we waited for an hour in Best Buy (most of that time was spent differing between two letters that closely relate to the letter "h" in english). I got to learn that at Iraq's seminar, they speak English instead of Arabic or Kurdish. English is used as a language mediator which I thought was EXTREMELY cool and had never considered before. I offered to have them help me with my video this week and they were so excited to help! You can watch me struggle with the "h" sounds.

The big lesson I have learned is that people love sharing their language with you. Every person that I have tried to communicate with has tried to help me. Don't feel as though they will tell you to stop, it just doesn't happen. If your goal is to be able to talk to somebody in their native language then just do it. The only way you will get better is to practice.

Until next time,